Kathy Dawson and daughter Emily have filed a human-rights complaint alleging the Edmonton Public School District’s use of a Christian fundamentalist abstinence education program infringed upon their rights as non-Christians.

Photograph by: Ed Kaiser
, Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - An Edmonton teenager and her mother have successfully filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, alleging the Edmonton Public School District’s use of a Christian fundamentalist abstinence education program infringed upon their rights as non-Christians.

Last July, Emily Dawson, then 17, was enrolled in a summer course of Career and Life Management at McNally High School. No Alberta high school student can graduate without taking CALM, a mandatory course.

Under Section 11 of Alberta’s Human Rights Act, parents have a right to be notified in advance if their children are going to be taught about sex, sexual orientation, or religion and to exempt their children from such classes.

The parental rights clause was introduced by the Stelmach government to placate social conservatives upset by the addition of sexual orientation to Alberta’s human rights code.

Dawson’s mother Kathy, an agnostic who supports sex education, signed the permission slip for Emily to attend CALM’s sexual education classes. She was shocked when Emily texted her to say the “sex ed” class was being taught by an anti-abortion activist, from the American-based Pregnancy Care Centre.

The group provides free abstinence education to about 60 Edmonton-area junior highs and high schools each year, most in the Edmonton Public district.

“She did a lot of slut-shaming to the women, and pointed out the guys as horn-dogs,” Emily says. “She really ridiculed single-parent families, she made it sound like they all give birth to juvenile delinquents.”

One classmate, Emily claims, asked about same-sex relationships.

“All those questions were shut down right way. She just said, ‘We’re not here to discuss that.’ ”

Kathy asked to have her daughter excused from the next lecture. She claims she was told there was no way her child could skip the class without academic penalty. So she insisted on sitting in the next class to hear the lecture for herself. Kathy says there was no mention of God or Jesus but, she alleges, all the arguments in favour of chastity until marriage or against divorce and abortion were deeply rooted in Christian doctrine.

The Dawsons’ complaints allege the presenter taught students that 60 per cent of boys carry the HPV sexually transmitted infection under their fingernails, that gonorrhea can kill you in three days, that girls should dress modestly to avoid inflaming boys. The allegations have not been proven.

“It’s values-based sex ed and all the values are evangelical values,” Kathy says. “It’s not even mainstream Christianity. I’m not against abstinence. But I think the message is diminished when it’s surrounded by misinformation and fear.”

She wrote to trustees about her concerns. She started a petition. The board, meanwhile, endorsed the Pregnancy Care Centre’s sex education curriculum. So Kathy and Emily, now 18 and a high school graduate, took legal action. In April they filed a complaint alleging they suffered discrimination because they were agnostics and because of their family status as a single-parent home. Kathy has also filed a complaint under Section 11, arguing that the board infringed her parental rights by failing to give her advance notice of the course content, then refusing to let her remove her daughter from the class without academic penalty.

This week the commission agreed to pursue the matter. It does not comment on complaints in progress. But Lisa Austin, who speaks for the public board, says the district is reviewing the complaint.

But in a presentation last month, Robertson said two EPSB staff had attended a Pregnancy Care Centre lecture and found it “a scientifically sound presentation, which was inclusive, respectful of individual differences and without religious content.”

Kathy Dawson wonders if those staffers got a toned-down version.

“They’re going to present differently when adults are there,” she says.

Meantime, the district says parents will be notified about the content of the presentations and given the opportunity to exempt their children.

Yet the letter currently being sent to parents makes no mention of the Pregnancy Care Centre’s Christian mission nor its pro-life advocacy. It merely says controversial subjects will be discussed from a variety of views.

It’s absurd. CALM isn’t religion class. That’s not what parents sign up for. Sex education in our local public schools should be delivered in a scientific, non-judgmental way, by qualified professionals, not outsourced to an American-based pro-life lobby group.

Emily and Kathy Dawson have inspired an important public debate about the nature of our public schools. They deserve our thanks for their courage in speaking out.

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Kathy Dawson and daughter Emily have filed a human-rights complaint alleging the Edmonton Public School District’s use of a Christian fundamentalist abstinence education program infringed upon their rights as non-Christians.

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